City sets higher tax rate
HUTTO — In a meeting that lasted more than seven hours, the Hutto City Council approved a tax rate of $0.422114, two cents above the no new revenue tax rate of $0.402114 and slightly above the 2023 rate of $0.421980. According to Interim Finance Director Anne LaMere, that will effectively be a 4.97% increase in the tax rate.
At the Sept. 21 meeting, Council Member Randal Clark said that using the no new revenue rate would have left the city underfunded.
“Right now (with NNR) we have a shortfall of $950,000 in our budget for road maintenance. We have nothing in the budget for emergency funds for cleanup activities. We spent over $250,000 on cleaning up just that one winter event earlier this year,” Clark said. “We underfunded many projects in the budget this year just to have a checkbox for the NNR rate.”
The meeting started with public comment from several speakers upset that Council had set a preliminary maximum tax rate of $0.45, and there were many items on the budget some community members and council members considered “wants” as opposed to “needs.”
“We’re spending a lot of time justifying why we want to take more money, but we aren’t spending any time talking about being better stewards of the money we have,” said Mayor Mike Snyder at the beginning of the meeting.
The city staff originally presented a fiscal year 2024 budget of $351,016,797 for all city funds. The budget was based on the NNR rate but included only $750,000 of the estimated $1.5 million needed for road improvements.
The revised, adopted tax rate will support a budget that includes $1.2 million for road improvements, an amount Council believes will keep many roads from devolving into a state requiring more expensive repairs based on a pavement study the city commissioned in 2022.
Over the past month Council had discussed adding an extra fee ranging from $5 to $10 per month for all households and businesses to cover the road maintenance budget, in order to avoid raising the tax rate. They ultimately voted against the added fee and funded the repairs within the general fund.
During the meeting, council members debated how to cut the budget in order to achieve an NNR tax rate. Items cut from the budget included new full-time positions for a cybersecurity analyst and an internal auditor, a feasibility study for a new library building, beautification signage on an overpass and some of the funds for adding sidewalks.
Council decided against cutting the $300,000 feasibility study for a new public safety center and police department building.
Inspired by Council’s staunch defense of a new facility for the police department, Snyder suggested adding funds into the budget to increase police officer pay.
“I’ve been trying for four years to get this done,” Snyder said. The mayor’s ultimate goal is to get the Hutto police pay up to the 75th percentile for regional law enforcement. It’s currently in the 50-percentile range.
Council ultimately did not add the full $800,000 needed to achieve Snyder’s goal, but they did add $600,000 to police salaries, a significant increase.
As of this report, city staff was still working on the Council’s amendments, and the final budget will be presented to the Council at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28 at Hutto Council Chambers, 500 W. Live Oak St.
The new budget will go into effect on Oct. 1.
Interim Finance Director Anne LaMere works with council members to bring the budget within their acceptable range. Photo courtesy of City of Hutto
